National Strategy for Volunteering

Introduction

The National Strategy for Volunteering (2023 – 2033) is Australia’s blueprint for a reimagined future for volunteering. It provides a ten-year roadmap to work collectively towards the Strategy’s vision: to make volunteering the heart of Australian communities.

The National Strategy was co-created by stakeholders across the volunteering ecosystem. Across three focus areas, it provides a shared agenda for change underpinned by robust research and evidence.

Across Australia, volunteers, organisations and governments are using the National Strategy to strengthen volunteering and create opportunities to work together. Whatever your role, the Strategy offers you a way to participate and contribute towards the ten-year movement to create a better future for volunteering.

Summary of resource

The National Strategy for Volunteering is a ten-year strategy co-created by stakeholders across the volunteering ecosystem. Across three focus areas, it outlines eleven Strategic Objectives to realise the Strategy’s vision to make volunteering the heart of Australian communities. It contains research, strategic guidance and everything you need to help reinvent the future of volunteering in Australia.

Benefits to volunteer managers

The importance of volunteer management is a key theme throughout the National Strategy. Volunteer Managers can use the National Strategy to improve their recruitment and retention, strengthen grant applications, improve the experience of volunteers, and make future plans for their volunteer engagement.

How to apply the tools, learnings or resource material

Members of the volunteering ecosystem can use the National Strategy for Volunteering to:

• Develop new initiatives or align existing work with those of other actors.

• Make the case for investment and in-kind resourcing to governments, philanthropists, foundations, and other grant makers.

• Collaborate with other members of the volunteering ecosystem to achieve shared goals.

• Conduct internal reviews to understand the efficacy of one’s own operations and identify areas for improvement.

• Work together to advance a shared agenda on volunteering to ensure volunteering in Australia is sustainable over the long-term and continues to be part of the rich social and cultural fabric of society.